The Horse and His Rider. Rollo Springfield
were distanced by Eclipse with the greatest ease (that is, he was at the winning post before they had reached another 240 yards behind it, called the distancing post), and thus, in the language of the turf, they had no place.
The pecuniary value of Eclipse and his progeny must have been something enormous. He was the sire of 354 winners, and these netted to their owners more than £160,000, exclusive of plates and cups. Ten years after he was withdrawn from the turf; O’Kelly was asked at what price he would sell him. At first he peremptorily refused to accept any price; but after some reflection, he said he would take £25,000, with an annuity of £500, besides certain privileges. The seeming extravagance of this sum excited considerable remark, but O’Kelly declared he had already cleared more than £25,000 by Eclipse, and that the animal was still young enough to earn double that sum.
From what we have said above, it appears that there are various standards of perfection for the horse’s form, and that there must be a certain vagueness in any general description which shall include them all. It is not a little remarkable that we are indebted to Terentius Varro, who wrote about the year 70 B.C., for a description of the horse which, in the opinion of so excellent a judge as Mr. Youatt, has scarcely been surpassed in modern times:—“We may prognosticate great things of a colt,” he says, “if, when running in the pastures, he is ambitious to get before his companions, and if, on coming to a river, he strives to be the first to plunge into it. His head should be small, his limbs clean and compact, his eyes bright and sparkling, his nostrils open and large, his ears placed near each other, his mane strong and full, his chest broad, his shoulders flat and sloping backwards, his loins broad and strong, his tail full and bushy, his legs straight and even, his knees broad and well knit, his hoofs hard and tough, and his veins large and swelling over all his body.”
The English thoroughbred horse, perhaps the finest animal of his kind in the world, derives his descent almost wholly from the Arab and the Barb. Instead of giving a prosaic description of his points, which those who desire it may find in books of a more technical character than ours: we will put him bodily before the reader in Barry Cornwall’s vigorous lines:—
THE BLOOD HORSE.
“Gamarra is a noble steed;
Strong, black, and of the desert breed;
Full of fire, and full of bone;
All his line of fathers known;
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,
But blown abroad by the pride within!
His mane, a stormy river flowing;
And his eyes like embers glowing
In the darkness of the night;
And his pace as swift as light.
Look—around his straining throat
Grace and shifting beauty float!
Sinewy strength is on his reins,
And the red blood gallops through his veins;
Richer, redder, never ran
Through the boasting heart of man!
He can trace his lineage higher
Than the Bourbon dare aspire,
Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph,
Or O’Brien’s blood itself.
He, who hath no peer, was born
Here, upon a red March morn:
But his famous fathers dead
Were Arabs all, and Arab bred;
And the last of that great line
Trod like one of race divine!
And yet—he was but friend to one
Who fed him at the set of sun,
By some lone fountain fringed with green:
With him—a roving Bedouin,
He lived (none else would he obey
Through all the hot Arabian day),
And died, untamed, upon the sands
Where Balkh amidst the desert stands!”
Nature has assigned to many races of animals certain geographical limits, beyond which they cannot thrive. Others, on the contrary, are so framed as to be capable of maintaining life and health in countries very widely diffused, and essentially differing in temperature, climate, and food, from those to which they appear indigenous. Fortunately for man, among this number are some of those animals that render him the most essential services—as the dog, the ox, the sheep, the hog, and the horse. The constitution of these useful allies is endowed with a capacity for adapting itself, more or less, to external circumstances; above all, their respective bulk undergoes notable variations proportioned to the ordinary supply of food within their reach. In the rich pastures of Flanders and of Lincolnshire the horse expands to its largest dimensions, whilst in mountainous regions and in northern islands it becomes a pony.
There is an East Indian pony called the Tattoo, commonly from ten to twelve hands high (a hand is four inches); they are sometimes much smaller. Tavernier describes one which he saw ridden by a young Mogul prince, which was not much larger than a greyhound. In 1765, one not more than seven hands, or twenty-eight inches high, was sent to England as a present to the Queen of George III. It was taken from the ship to the palace in a hackney-coach. It was of a dun colour, and its hair resembled that of a young fawn. It was four years old, well proportioned, had fine ears, a quick eye, with a handsome long tail, and was thoroughly good-natured and manageable.
Hurdwar, in Upper India, is the site of a great cattle fair; Colonel Davidson, describing his visit to this busy scene, says, that among the greatest curiosities he witnessed were half-a-dozen powerful ponies from Usbeck Tartary, called phooldars, which means flower-marked. They were under thirteen hands high, and of the most curious compound colours or marks that can be imagined. A description cannot easily be given, but it may be attempted. Suppose, in the first place, that the animal is of a fine snow white; cover the white with large, irregular, bright bay spots; in the middle of these light bay let there be dark bay marbled spots; at every six or eight inches plant lozenge-shaped patches of a very dark iron grey; then sprinkle the whole with dark flea-bites. There is a phooldar! What a sensation one of these animals would excite in the London Parks!
The horses of the Feroe Islands are of small growth, but strong, swift, and sure of foot, going over the roughest places, so that a man may more surely rely on them than trust to his own feet. In Suderoe, one of these islands, they have a lighter and swifter breed than in any of the rest. On their backs the inhabitants pursue the sheep, which are wild in this island; the pony carries the man over places which would be otherwise inaccessible to him—follows his rider over others—enters into the full sport of the chase, and even knocks down and holds the prey under his feet until the rider can take possession of it.
The British islands produce several interesting breeds of ponies. The largest of these, the Scotch Galloway, is unfortunately almost extinct. It was from thirteen to fourteen hands high, of a bright bay or brown, with black legs, small head and neck, and peculiarly deep and clean legs. Its qualities were speed, stoutness, and surefootedness over a very rugged and mountainous country. Dandie Dinmont’s famous Dumple was of this breed. Dr. Anderson thus describes a galloway belonging to himself:—“In point of elegance of shape it was a perfect picture, and in disposition it was gentle and compliant. It moved almost with a wish, and never tired. I rode this little creature for twenty-five years, and twice in that time I rode a hundred and fifty miles at a stretch, without stopping, except to bait, and that not for above an hour at a time. It came in at the last stage with as much ease and alacrity as it travelled the first. I could have undertaken to perform on this beast, when it was in its prime, sixty miles a day for a twelvemonth, without any extraordinary exertion.”
The Exmoor ponies, though generally ugly enough, are hardy and useful: one of them has been known to clear a gate eight inches higher than his back. Those